Kyle and her husband moved to Brookfield in 1986. She became active in local politics and started blogging in 2004. Her focus is primarily on local issues but often includes state and national topics, too. Kyle looks at things from the taxpayers' perspective in a creative, yet down to earth way, addressing them from a practical point of view.

Good day boys and girls. A friend of mine forwarded me the letter
that I’m about to post. She apparently got a hold of it from a talk show out west
and it was written to the talk show host by a real person. I have done
my due diligence, checked it out on snopes and checked out the website
of the person whose name was quoted in the email.

Send this on to others… Joe the plumber woke some people up as they
putt a face on the people who are going to be taxed more. Here’s a real
example…

Mr. Obama,

Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the
plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he
dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to
you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already
have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce
myself. You can call me “Cory the well driller”. I am a 54-year-old
high school graduate. I didn’t go to college like you, I was too ready
to go “conquer the world” when I finished high school. 25 years ago at
age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when
the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the
early 80’s oil boom. I didn’t get any help from the government, nor did
I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and
even the pawnshop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig
and a few tools to do my first job. My businesses did not start not a
result of privilege. It is the result of my personal drive, personal
ambition, self-discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat
my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other
(than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn’t afford a backhoe
the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I
and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and
every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10-year-old, ½-ton pickup
truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton
truck).

A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a
20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year) old,
worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper
water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with
the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. Through these
years I never knew from one month to the next if I would have any work
or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my income taxes one year,
and spent the next two years paying that back (with penalty and
interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my water
well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the second time…
$80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back (each time) while
continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D. Of course, the personal
stress endured through these experiences and years is hard to measure.
I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all.

I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the
most competent and most honest water well driller in East Texas. 2
years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the
drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump
service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I
bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting
business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to
build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service
machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn’t work out for
3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any
added income from the new machine. No government program was there to
help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night, as I lay awake
wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my bills.
Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working properly, and
that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the screen
service business.

2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for
$250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support
equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided
another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of
years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would
bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I
owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.

A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new
kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well
drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00),
building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well
convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out of
the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had depleted
my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a business
loan to start production of the new pumps. With several deposits for
pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started applying for
as many credit card as I could find and took cash withdrawals on these
cards to the tune of over $150,000.00 (including modest loans from my
dear sister and brother), to get this 3rd business going.

Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort
to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I had
to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine from an
untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six months). How
many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the paramount
mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were plenty. I managed
to get the pumps into production, which immediately created another 2
full time jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in the first year
suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship of one of my
key suppliers, so an employee and I (another East Texan employed) had
to drive across the country to repair customers’ pumps, practically
from coast to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments to
all the credit cards that had financed me (and my brother and sister).
I spent the next 5 years improving and refining the product, building a
reputation for the pump and the company, working to get the pump into
drill rig manufacturers’ product lines, and paying back credit cards.
During all this time I continued to manage a growing water well
business that was now operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service
crews. Also, the screen service business continued to grow. No
government programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that’s ok, I
didn’t expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make
success happen to sit around waiting for the government to help me.

Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my
combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute
$5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy. Now, just 4 months
ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled machining
equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine shop. The
machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can better
manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of course, the
machine shop will also do work for outside companies as well. This has
already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out
of it in the next few months. This should work out, but if it doesn’t
it will be because you, and the other professional politicians like
yourself, will have destroyed our country’s’ (and the world) economy
with your meddling with mortgage loan programs through your liberal
manipulation and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that
unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at the very time
when I couldn’t get a business loan to get my mud pumps into
production, you were working with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment
Act programs to make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes
with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even
the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While
these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest
rates, I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had
used to provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created
jobs for more East Texans. It’s funny, because after 25 years of
turning almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to
grow them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally
made enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and
now the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and
your ilk have perpetrated on our country.

You see, Mr. Obama, I’m the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I’m
the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and
fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I’m
the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen
times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more
jobs for East Texans who didn’t want to take a risk, and wouldn’t
demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I’m the guy
you characterize as “the Americans who can afford it the most” that you
believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution “to
spread the wealth” to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted,
fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to characterize me as
someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a
higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your
entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want
to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career.
What’s worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal
entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a
better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more
than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal
media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems
across our land.

What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was made great
by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self-reliance,
self-motivation, self-determination, self-discipline, personal
betterment, and hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the
concept that success was in reach on every able bodied American who
would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that
culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path
that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and
unremarkable states. If you and your liberal comrades in the media and
school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a culture of
can-do across America as you do cultivating your entitlement culture,
we could see Americans at large embracing the conviction that they can
elevate themselves through personal betterment, personal achievement,
and self reliance. You see, when people embrace such ideals, they act
on them. When people act on such ideals, they succeed. All of America
could find herself elevating instead of deteriorating. But that would
eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn’t it, Mr. Obama? The
country would not need you if the country was convinced that problem
solving was best left with individuals instead of the government. You
and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating
a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals
to create an ever-expanding dependence on government. What’s remarkable
is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to
tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn’t need
my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and
apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking
to liberal politicians to raise their station in life.

You see, I know because I’ve had them work for me before. Hundreds
of them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work
on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6
days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People
who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay
them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices to
apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would
have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning money and
pleasing their employer?). You see, all of this comes from your
entitlement mentality culture.

Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama,
wrong again. You see, I’ve seen what the average percentage of your
income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004
(ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce
“politically motivated”); you averaged of less than 1% annually. And
your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual
income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many
liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it
is someone else’s money you are giving to them. I won’t say what I have
given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is
several times more than you or Joe Biden (don’t you just hate goggle?).
Tell me again how you feel my pain.

In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent
everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of
government dependence instead of self-reliance; Entitlement mentality
instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to
reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open
mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over
the final transformation of America from being the greatest and most
self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and
wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their
problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All
countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a
little less to offer mankind every year.

God help us…

Cory Miller

just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans used to be.

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